These empanadas don't have to be mini -- or even Latin American -- though. The greatest part, in addition to the flavor, is that they fit comfortably in your hand.

Five things I learned:

1. Recipes for empanadas have been popping up on my radar for months, but I've been leery because they look like something I'd make a mess of.

I needn't have worried. As long as you don't put too much filling in, the crust folds over and is easy to seal.

2. I doubled the recipe because it only made four empanadas. There's no way that was going to be enough, even if I hid them from my co-workers. My runner husband could easily eat three in one sitting.

3. Stop me if you've heard this one: I thought I had 2 pounds of ground beef at home, so I didn't buy any.

Right. I only had 1 pound and needed it for something else.

I wrung my hands for a few minutes, poking around in places where I might have hidden it from myself, but in the interest of time gave up and used Italian sausage.

Yes, yes, yes. Decidedly not Argentine, a country that prides itself on its beef. In fact, more traditional recipes actually call for diced steak.

At this point, my empanadas were actually calzones without tomato sauce, or British pasties, so let's just call these "hand pies."

My point is, you can make them with any ground meat and seasoning mixture. Just use the skeleton of this recipe and fill it with whatever suits your fancy.

4. The only thing that worried me about this plan was what to do about the seasonings. The original recipe called for cumin and paprika. I didn't think cumin would work with the Italian seasonings already in the sausage, so I nixed it.

The next time there's plain old ground beef in the house, I'm going to go all out with the cumin as well as some ground red pepper. I really know how to live.

5. The recipe called for a chopped up hard boiled egg, traditional for Argentine food.

Have at it. I didn't feel like making one -- or even six -- so I nixed that, too.

By this point, I'd given up on these tasting anything like Argentine anyway, but that didn't stop them from disappearing.